Sole Mates
by Beaglicious
Summary: Greg, I need someone to get hot and sweaty with. Missing scene with spoilers for 4x20, Dead Ringer. Sandles.


**Sole Mates**

**Disclaimer: Not mine, just borrowing them.**

**Summary: Greg, I need someone to get hot and sweaty with. Missing scene from 4x20, Dead Ringer. Sandles.**

Sara's breaths were shallow and rapid, and although the night air in the desert was chilly, her fleece was soaked through with sweat. Her thighs burned and her feet ached, and the nagging stitch that had started just under her left ribcage was quickly diffusing across her entire abdomen. She passed the baton to her left hand, her right hand cramped from her tight grasp on the cylindrical object. A bead of sweat trickled down her face, temporarily blinding her, but she still managed to see the marker as she dashed past it. Half a mile to go. Half a mile until she reached Nick and could unload this burden onto him.

Sara crested the final hill of her leg and squinted until the hand-off zone came into focus. There were bodies everywhere, jumping up and down, waving their arms and milling back and forth. How was she ever going to find Nick in this mess? The spotlight from the chopper humming overhead had kept her from tripping during her jaunt through the desert, but it also kept her from seeing anything more than ten feet ahead of her. Where was Nick? She continued to squint, looking for his familiar silhouette.

"Nick!" She called out, her words ragged as she gasped for oxygen. "Nick, where are you?"

She heard him before she saw him. "Sara!" Summoning up a final reserve of energy she thought she'd long since expended, she picked up her pace, focusing solely on Nick's shadowy figure.

When she reached him, she narrowly missed crashing into him and knocking them both to the ground. "Nice job, Sar," Nick said as he took the baton. And then he was gone, the steady sound of his feet pounding the pavement growing fainter and fainter.

Sara kept running, unable to stop the impulsion that had carried her body through six miles of the Nevada desert. She would have fallen, too exhausted to do anything other than let the ground stop her, had strong arms not wrapped around her waist and pulled her into a body that was nearly as damp with sweat as her own.

"We did it, Sara." Greg's familiar voice sounded in her ear. Finally recognizing her running partner, Sara flung her arms around Greg's neck, her face breaking into a true smile.

"We did," she agreed, still trying to catch her breath. She knew she probably smelled as bad as Greg did, and that she was definitely sweatier, but right then, nothing felt sweeter than to be wrapped in his embrace.

Greg whirled her around a few more times, pulling their bodies out of the path of the race. Sara's legs, now the consistency of jelly, were unable to resist as Greg pulled her off the pavement and into the darkness of the shoulder. He stopped finally, and Sara began talking, eager to tell her running partner how much she'd missed him.

Throughout their training, Greg had managed to keep up a steady flow of chatter, no matter how far or how hard they had run. The incessant one-sided conversation (for although Greg had peppered her with questions, she'd been unable to answer) had driven Sara batty until she'd had to run without it. Ten minutes into her run, and she had been ready to pass up water in favor of Greg's voice in her ear, encouraging her to go just a little bit farther.

"I missed your motor mouth," she told him as her fingers curled around the nape of his neck and ran through the sweaty curls that stuck there.

"You did?" he asked in a teasing manner, although her admission surprised him. His arms were still wrapped loosely around her waist, and the intimacy of the moment was not lost on him. "Well, it's all yours now."

Sara laughed, and then smacked Greg as the pain in her side flared. "Don't make me laugh, Sanders," she wheezed a moment later. "It makes the stitch in my side hurt even worse."

They quieted down then, Sara's breaths still coming fast but rapidly evening out. Greg met her eyes, his own hazel ones suddenly serious and brimming with unasked questions. Sara looked back at him, a frown forming on her mouth. "What?" she asked.

Greg shook his head, and then brought one hand up from her waist to brush a few damp curls off her face. "I had fun getting hot and sweaty with you," he said finally, a small smile on his face.

Sara laughed again, high off the endorphins streaming through her body. "Even if it wasn't the way you'd prefer to get hot and sweaty with me?"

Greg nodded in agreement. "Even if it wasn't the way I'd prefer to get hot and sweaty with you." They both smiled at the inside joke.

Months earlier, Sara surprised Greg in the DNA lab, walking up behind him and whispering seductively in his ear, "Greg, I need someone to get hot and sweaty with."

Greg spun around in his chair so fast he nearly fell off it. "You've come to the right place," he responded once he recovered, an eager and cheeky grin in place.

"Good," Sara answered, tossing a file folder down on his desk. "Because I've just signed us both up to run for the CSI team during the annual officers' convention."

Greg's face fell so quickly that Sara was tempted to kiss him to soften the blow of her jest, an impulse that surprised her so much that she quickly buried the thought and stepped away from Greg.

"I need a running partner to train with," she continued when Greg still didn't appear to understand what she wanted from him. "And I _really_ don't want to have to ask Hodges."

Greg shook his head. "I don't run."

"You do now," Sara said. "I'll see you after shift for our first session." She scooted out of the lab then, not giving Greg a chance to respond. She knew it had been a cruel trick to use Greg's feelings towards her for personal gain, but she really did need a running partner, and knew that Greg would by far be the easiest member of their team to solicit. He might not run, but he wouldn't back out on her either, crush or no crush.

Sara's ploy had paid off. She'd had to put up with a fair amount of whining and moaning from Greg both before and after their runs, as well as his nonstop jabbering during their training sessions, but he'd been a faithful partner, never once bailing on her, and often talking Sara into running "just one more mile." And despite his protests that he didn't run, he had easily managed to keep pace with Sara.

As the months carried on, their runs extended into breakfast and often into the rest of the day as well. Sara took to spending a few days a week at Greg's, initially lured into his apartment by the promise of a pot of Blue Hawaiian. Her caffeine needs sated and her body exhausted from both work and running, she would often fall asleep on his couch, the remote still clutched in her hand. Greg, still awake and at the other end of the couch, would cover her body with a blanket and slink away to his own bed to sleep alone. Eventually, the temptation of falling asleep on the couch with Sara proved too much for him, and it was not an unusual scene to find them asleep together on the couch, Sara's head resting on one arm and Greg's on the other, their legs tangling together in the middle. It was an arrangement they never discussed.

"I guess now I can go back to my slothful and unhealthy ways," Greg said. Sara had not only conned Greg into running but had also worked on his eating habits, plying him with soy protein and tofu substitutes. Greg made quite of show of disliking it all, oftentimes holding his nose as he drank down Sara's latest concoction. He almost won her sympathy until he smirked one day and she caught him. Any protests after that were met with a short "Suck it up, Sanders."

"And I guess that means I've got to go back to drinking regular coffee," Sara responded, suddenly sad. Without a reason to hang out, there was little hope that they'd be spending any more time together outside of work.

"Breaking up is hard to do," Greg quipped, although the jovial effect was muted by his melancholy tone.

Sara nodded, but remained silent.

"Unless," Greg said suddenly, the twinkle returning to his eyes.

Sara narrowed hers. "Unless what, Greg?" she asked.

Greg tightened his hold on her waist and pulled Sara to him. "Unless you want to try getting hot and sweaty my way." He raised his eyebrow, hoping that the gesture would give him an excuse to call the whole thing a joke if Sara declined, even though he was quite serious.

Sara's eyes flared open. "Oh, well, Greg…"

The rest of her words were lost as Greg dipped his head down towards her, gently placing his lips to hers. Sara froze. This was Greg she was kissing. Greg, her running partner and co-worker, who although funny and charming and cute, was not who she was supposed to be kissing. His kiss wasn't supposed to feel this good either, and she certainly wasn't supposed to want to kiss him back. She waited for a sign from Greg, to see if he would do more than just cover her lips with his or if he would back away, apologizing as he did so.

When it became obvious that Greg was waiting on a response from her, Sara panicked, doing the first thing she could think of, which was to pull away from him. "Sorry," she mumbled. "I just…I can't."

"It's okay," he said, his eyes averted. "I was just kidding."

"Greg," Sara said, not believing him.

Greg looked up at her, his eyes wide and innocent. "What? It was just a joke, I swear."

"Just a joke?" she asked, skeptical.

Greg nodded his head up and down enthusiastically. Sara cocked her head to the side and studied him, an amused look on her face. "So you're admitting that if I did, in fact, want to get hot and sweaty your way, you wouldn't want to?"

It was Greg's turn to stutter. "I – uh, well…"

Sara closed distance between them and put her arms back around his neck, moving her face towards his until their lips were less than an inch apart. "Tell me it was just a joke, Sanders."

Greg refused to meet her eyes and remained silent, too ashamed to admit that his feelings for her were no joke.

Sara sighed. "You do realize what a horrible idea this is, don't you?"

Greg nodded.

"Still," Sara continued. "It would give me an excuse to come over and drink your coffee." She kissed him then, before he could respond, feeling his body stiffen against hers and then relax once he realized that she wasn't teasing him. He kissed her back then, his arms going to her waist once more to pull her tightly against him. With the majority of the runners having long since passed them and the lights of the chopper and patrol cars in tow, the darkness of the desert enveloped them. They were less than fifteen feet from the nearest water table, but were completely blanketed by the night's darkness.

When they finally separated, out of breath, Sara cupped Greg's face in her hand. "Ready to get that coffee?"

Greg's face broke out into a grin as broad and genuine as Sara's had been earlier. Sara took his hand in hers and pulled him in the direction of the Denali. "I need to get out of these clothes anyways," she said.

"I can help you with that," Greg said, his spunk quickly returning.

"That was my plan," Sara tossed over her shoulder at him. Greg jogged the few feet to catch up with her, taking her into his arms and lifting her off the ground, nuzzling her neck as he did so.

"Aren't you glad you asked me to run with you and not Hodges?" he mumbled in between kisses.

Sara laughed and swatted at him. "And to think, you nearly turned me down because you don't run."

The End


End file.
